king of the jailhouse and the queen of the road
by She's a Star
Summary: They’re the same, him and her. [KateSawyer.]


the king of the jailhouse and the queen of the road

(She's a Star)

**Author's Note:** These are a bunch of Kate/Sawyer drabbles I've wound up writing for whatever reason over the past year or so, and I decided to just group them all together here. :-D They are varying degrees of awful, on account of having written them so far apart, and the prompt for the last one was a title for a Snow Patrol song, so 'Somewhere a Clock is Ticking' is not mine. Title's from King of the Jailhouse by Aimee Mann.

Enjoy! (?)

--

_pilot part ii_

Kate doesn't know how to hold a gun.

It sickens her to do it, too; to feel it in her hands. There is no rush, no subtle transformation, little girl lost to deathly femme fatale in two seconds flat. She's never done this before, never pointed a gun at someone. She's never even considered pulling a trigger, and couldn't even if she wanted to.

(She's a good little actress, by necessity.)

No one thinks to question this, either. Not the blonde, who is too busy playing the damsel in distress to feel threatened by the presence of another woman (who she would no doubt classify as a non-threat right away; freckles aren't charming unless you're ten, and her shoulders are too broad anyway); her brother dotes obediently, and doesn't seem to have his mind on much else; she won Charlie over with her nonexistent friend's adoration for a band that has always annoyed the hell out of her; she and Sayid are already partners in this.

But then there's the last one – the cowboy, she wants to dismissively label him and be done with it. But there's something in his eyes, an instant recognition. He sees right through her, and it twists her stomach to realize it.

He's cocky, disgustingly self-assured: he pulls her close and murmurs his words like they're already lovers, like he's stripped her down to her soul in his head and there's nothing she can do to change it. He's been with girls like her, and she believes him, too, as she looks into his eyes and feels his rough sure hand against her skin. He smells like cologne and cigarettes and sweat, drawing up all her old ghosts in one man. After Jack, she can't help thinking she's haunted on purpose, all her sins made flesh right before her eyes. It reminds her of high school English, Shakespeare, out damned spot but she's not exactly the type who deserves any mercy.

'No girl's exactly like me,' she says, her heart pounding. He smirks as she pulls away, and she decides that no matter what, she'll avoid this one like hell.

--

_confidence man_

Kate puts the pieces together. Finds the truth (she murmurs the words to herself, over and over, with the frenzy and the faith of someone at prayer). _Dear Mr. Sawyer._

It strikes her all at once.

_Oh,_ she thinks, suddenly, a mediocre response to such an epiphany, but there is nothing else to think. Her heart breaks for this man, quick and clean as picking a dandelion.

He shifts slightly in his sleep. The white bandage on his arm is turned brilliant by the sun. For a minute, she is struck by the strange urge to fix him (lips against his forehead, light; soft healer's hands to his mask of a face) – and it's absurd because it's her. She is already in pieces, and has no right.

He breathes evenly, in and out in and out, and she watches. It occurs to her that he is not as skilled an actor as he likes to believe; he has played Mr. Sawyer well – his biting words and greedy tongue – but there are certain things even he can't hide. She remembers his face (the little boy sadness, desperately imploring for absolution) before she'd kissed him.

And now his hair is in his eyes; the earthy gold of straw, the way hers was in childhood before she grew up and turned dark. Her right hand nearly darts forward on its own to brush it away, but the letter's still in her left and it weighs her down.

Her eyes drift to its words instead, again and again, and she is silent with sorrow just as he is with sleep. They seem a world apart from everyone else, muted and cast aside as punishment; a couple of prisoners who will run and hide regardless until it kills them both. A perfect pair, in some respects - him possessed by the man who broke him and her with monsters' blood coursing through her veins, and the dreadful darkness in her (or is it the abandoned child?) is thankful that she's not alone in this. For the two of them, there is only the discontentment of the ocean, the insidious breeze. She waits for him to wake up.

--

_born to run_

She looks pretty in the firelight – fragile, almost, and ain't that the damndest thing – and the way she looks at him seems to beg some silent question. From where he stands it almost looks like _stay_, but he knows better. Funny, to see her eyes shine with something so much like truth; she's a liar – an actress, if you want to get fancy about it. She's got everyone on this damn island fooled except him, and he figures the least he can do is offer her the courtesy of pretending not to see her.

They're the same, him and her, and her eyes tell him she knows things about him that he won't even confess to himself: the bittersweet fact that this just might be a suicide mission, and he's standing here ready and willing.

_Be safe, Sawyer,_ she says, almost like she wants to save him.

A better man, he knows, would kiss her right about now; take her in his arms and brush her hair from her eyes and stay; to hell with freedom or dying or whatever the hell else waits for him on the open sea.

But he's a cowardly son of a bitch, chasing revenge like ghosts and spinning lies just as good as she does. It's something they're both counting on, 'cause otherwise she wouldn't look at him like that. Damned if he'll let her down, he decides, and walks away.

--

_collision_

And here he is, a man possessed by something – contradiction, if you want to be delicate, but he's never been one for airs, knows it's just a fancy term for war. What's fighting, he's not sure. Everything's gone up in fire and brimstone, or maybe ice, and there's a clarity lost somewhere in the blur that he's sure would put it all together, line it all up real nice if only he could move, stop shaking, see or maybe close his eyes, well well well what a lovely little mess we have here. (There's pain, he knows, but he's not quite sure whether he feels it.)

When he hears her voice, he's not sure whether he's dreaming or dead.

--

_the glass ballerina_

Somewhere a clock is ticking and Kate can feel it in her heartbeat and her bones; this is eternal, it says, time is running out, it says, running running her legs ache for it and it's like she's six with scabs on her knees and a pretty white dress. Her (criminal) hands clasp the bars 'til her knuckles turn snow white and she blinks back tears and she chokes back sobs like this isn't the place she's supposed to be at all, this isn't where she was supposed to end up, not her. She's a sheep with a wolf grin, not the other way around, and there's Henry saying his name is Benjamin and that he knows just how dirty she is, he can see right clean into her soul.

Across from her, Sawyer looks at her like she's something beautiful, and this scares her more than anything else because he was the one, the only one who saw the grit and the ugliness underneath and still didn't look away. But now he talks to her just the same as he always did only his words are soft, and his eyes are more sweet than sharp and she tries so damn hard not to love him because she knows that's just what they want, because otherwise it wouldn't be him out here caged just like she is.

At night she curls up on a slab of stone and feels like a virgin sacrifice, all dolled up in white with her unruly curls and her prince charming locked up, look-but-don't-touch, able only to reach his hand out from in between the bars but not allowed to kiss her back to life. _Sweet dreams, Freckles_, he says and she feels his eyes on her in the moonlight as she tries to rest. She clasps her hands like she's praying _I'm a killer a killer I turn lives to dust_ and it's not as easy as they might think to break her. She's a monster, after all.

_tick tick tick_


End file.
